Patrick Reinken's Blog: Writing to Write - Posts Tagged "grisham"
Writing to Write - it's a title...
Is there something wrong with writing just to write? I mean, I'm sitting and looking at this blank box ("New Blog Post"), and I'm trying to figure out what to fill that box in with in this, my first blog post not just in this spot on Goodreads, but anywhere. And since it is that monumental a moment (assuming a blog ever can be monumental), I've supposed it should say something about me. And since it's on Goodreads, I've supposed it should also say something about writing. Which is what's interesting me right now, as well as what's interested me for the last 20 years.
So I look back and I wonder why I first wanted to write and why I started writing and why I still write, and I run through the thinking of that, and I end up with that one thing: I write to write.
I write because I like it. And so I write, simply, to write.
When I was in high school (which sometimes feels like it was sometime around 1902 but actually wasn't all that far back), a teacher pushed me into an English award competition. From the National Council of Teachers of English, I think it was. There certainly were multiple tasks to get that award, and I just as certainly have forgotten all of them save one, despite having won the award in the end. Disappointing, isn't it? I mean, you'd think I'd remember what I actually had to do, given the fact that I won. Nope. No clue anymore.
Except for that one thing, and that's the point here. There was a writing element to it, and the topic was to write an essay of X length, on why it was important to write.
I remember the essay. Sort of...
I wrote about communication and expression, exchange of thought, critical thinking, entertainment through shared experiences. I even think it may have been pretty good, and I'm sure I believed it. I still do.
All those things are reasons why I write, to be sure. But it still comes down to that thing: at a personal level, I write because I like it.
I always have, but it took on a driving form at that "20 years ago" point. Back then, I'd finished reading a bestseller (no title to be given here, but it was and still is a major author), I put it down, and I was disappointed. It was a simple story, told simply, I hadn't particularly enjoyed it, and I thought - with a startling level of naivete then and an equally startling level of pride as I look back on it now - I could do this.
I got a beer (there's no real relevance to that, but it's true), and I wrote an outline for a novel. A couple sentences for each chapter, a number of chapters for each sub-book, and somewhere around 75-80 total chapters.
Way too many by the way. No need to point it out to me. But I also sketched out characters, and there were too many of those, too.
Live and learn....
I finished it in four months, put together a query letter, synopsis, sample chapters - lots of us know that drill - and sent it to one agent. John Grisham's agent at the time. Ignorance being bliss, apparently.
Here's the twist, though - they agreed to represent me. I signed the rep agreement, they started pushing the manuscript, and - another twist - they sold it.
Judgment Day
was published by Simon & Schuster in 1996, to some nice reviews. Then Hayakawa published a Japanese edition in 2000.
It was exciting. Lucky, too, given that first agent/first novel part. It may even have been more lucky than exciting, though I like to focus on the exciting part.
But the book sold only okay regionally and not great wider out. It was a legal and medical thriller at a time when thrillers were probably coming off their high point.
Even more, it was right at the time that the publishing biz was going through a dramatic time, what with the Internet and tiny profit margins and big costs and changing tastes and exponential escalation of alternative entertainments.
Looking around today, the landscape is dramatically changed. Hardcover trades are diminished despite being beloved, paperbacks are found as much in oversized trade as they are in mass market, ebooks have gotten their legs and are sprinting on them, bookstores are being challenged on all fronts, and the biggest things still selling at appreciable rates are book club (and you should read that as "/literary") books and the now-everywhere Young Adult works.
Here, I was gonna add a crack that I'd be selling books hand over fist if I were smart enough to combine something truly literary with monsters.
But too late. I mean, we can all agree on that. Right?
Yeah. We can.
Anyway, the point of all this, and of the title of the entry and even of the blog, is that I didn't stop writing. I don't have great experiences to list out beyond that one above. I do have good bits here and there, promising leads that didn't pan out, some fun in writing things and sharing them with people, a call about movie options.
I kept my day job, though, and it's a good thing I did. But I also kept writing. I'm sure I always will.
It's left me with a pile of manuscripts, some pretty good, some okay, and one or two that were, well, neither of those things. I like them all. Again, I'm sure I always will.
And that's not just because "they're my kids" or anything else that you hear people say. No, I like them all because I write to write. I write because I like it.
I will publish the manuscripts. I'll either knock out a hit and use it to carry the older ones forward, or I'll publish them myself, using the fantastic resources of e-publishing that are available now.
I did that with Glass House
, because I believe in the book, I want people to have a chance to read it, and I want to know what they think. I'll do it with others.
In fact, I'll do it with others even as I work on selling my latest manuscript through a traditional agent, for traditional publishing. I expect some misery and complaints and more experiences in all that. I'm sure I'll include them in entries here now and again.
And in the end, I will keep writing, through all of it.
Because I love it.
So I look back and I wonder why I first wanted to write and why I started writing and why I still write, and I run through the thinking of that, and I end up with that one thing: I write to write.
I write because I like it. And so I write, simply, to write.
When I was in high school (which sometimes feels like it was sometime around 1902 but actually wasn't all that far back), a teacher pushed me into an English award competition. From the National Council of Teachers of English, I think it was. There certainly were multiple tasks to get that award, and I just as certainly have forgotten all of them save one, despite having won the award in the end. Disappointing, isn't it? I mean, you'd think I'd remember what I actually had to do, given the fact that I won. Nope. No clue anymore.
Except for that one thing, and that's the point here. There was a writing element to it, and the topic was to write an essay of X length, on why it was important to write.
I remember the essay. Sort of...
I wrote about communication and expression, exchange of thought, critical thinking, entertainment through shared experiences. I even think it may have been pretty good, and I'm sure I believed it. I still do.
All those things are reasons why I write, to be sure. But it still comes down to that thing: at a personal level, I write because I like it.
I always have, but it took on a driving form at that "20 years ago" point. Back then, I'd finished reading a bestseller (no title to be given here, but it was and still is a major author), I put it down, and I was disappointed. It was a simple story, told simply, I hadn't particularly enjoyed it, and I thought - with a startling level of naivete then and an equally startling level of pride as I look back on it now - I could do this.
I got a beer (there's no real relevance to that, but it's true), and I wrote an outline for a novel. A couple sentences for each chapter, a number of chapters for each sub-book, and somewhere around 75-80 total chapters.
Way too many by the way. No need to point it out to me. But I also sketched out characters, and there were too many of those, too.
Live and learn....
I finished it in four months, put together a query letter, synopsis, sample chapters - lots of us know that drill - and sent it to one agent. John Grisham's agent at the time. Ignorance being bliss, apparently.
Here's the twist, though - they agreed to represent me. I signed the rep agreement, they started pushing the manuscript, and - another twist - they sold it.
Judgment Day
was published by Simon & Schuster in 1996, to some nice reviews. Then Hayakawa published a Japanese edition in 2000.It was exciting. Lucky, too, given that first agent/first novel part. It may even have been more lucky than exciting, though I like to focus on the exciting part.
But the book sold only okay regionally and not great wider out. It was a legal and medical thriller at a time when thrillers were probably coming off their high point.
Even more, it was right at the time that the publishing biz was going through a dramatic time, what with the Internet and tiny profit margins and big costs and changing tastes and exponential escalation of alternative entertainments.
Looking around today, the landscape is dramatically changed. Hardcover trades are diminished despite being beloved, paperbacks are found as much in oversized trade as they are in mass market, ebooks have gotten their legs and are sprinting on them, bookstores are being challenged on all fronts, and the biggest things still selling at appreciable rates are book club (and you should read that as "/literary") books and the now-everywhere Young Adult works.
Here, I was gonna add a crack that I'd be selling books hand over fist if I were smart enough to combine something truly literary with monsters.
But too late. I mean, we can all agree on that. Right?
Yeah. We can.
Anyway, the point of all this, and of the title of the entry and even of the blog, is that I didn't stop writing. I don't have great experiences to list out beyond that one above. I do have good bits here and there, promising leads that didn't pan out, some fun in writing things and sharing them with people, a call about movie options.
I kept my day job, though, and it's a good thing I did. But I also kept writing. I'm sure I always will.
It's left me with a pile of manuscripts, some pretty good, some okay, and one or two that were, well, neither of those things. I like them all. Again, I'm sure I always will.
And that's not just because "they're my kids" or anything else that you hear people say. No, I like them all because I write to write. I write because I like it.
I will publish the manuscripts. I'll either knock out a hit and use it to carry the older ones forward, or I'll publish them myself, using the fantastic resources of e-publishing that are available now.
I did that with Glass House
, because I believe in the book, I want people to have a chance to read it, and I want to know what they think. I'll do it with others.In fact, I'll do it with others even as I work on selling my latest manuscript through a traditional agent, for traditional publishing. I expect some misery and complaints and more experiences in all that. I'm sure I'll include them in entries here now and again.
And in the end, I will keep writing, through all of it.
Because I love it.
